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Holistic Application Security to Protect Data and Improve Compliance

(Aug 22, 2008)-- In the newly released benchmark report, "Application Security: Protect Sensitive Data while Improving Compliance," Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company, found that on average, Best-in-Class organizations were able to realize a 12x greater decrease in the number of successful application security attacks than Industry Average companies as a direct result of incorporating the right blend of technologies and services as a part of their comprehensive application security strategies.

This report examined and analyzed organizations' planning, deployment, use, and management of their application security to provide a roadmap for constructing holistic, business-advancing application security strategies. As part of their comprehensive application security, Best-in-Class organizations are 3.5x as likely as Laggards to incorporate real or near-real time application security monitoring tools. Using tools that track and report defects throughout the application lifecycle allows organizations to significantly reduce the costly timeframe existing between problem identification and problem resolution. In addition, the Best-in-Class are 62% more likely than Laggards to incorporate their application security policy into their overarching information security policy. Leveraging the right solutions allowed the Best-in-Class to not only improve the security of their applications, but also to increase application uptime by 13%, and decrease data loss incidents by 9%.

"To fully capitalize on the business-advancing gains stemming from effective application security, organizations must be able to identify, manage, and mitigate security risks both in current, newly developed, and new versions of existing applications," said Stephen Walker, senior associate, Aberdeen. "A well-planned and holistically derived application security process can dramatically reduce a company's IT security exposure, improve compliance activities, and streamline operational, financial, and strategic processes. By pursuing an application security strategy featuring the right blend of monitoring and measuring tools, Best-in-Class organizations were able to align any application security implementations to corporate business goals, and subsequently increased their compliance success-rate by over 11%."

The report first identifies how Best-in-Class organizations structure and govern internal capabilities and technology solutions to maximize the benefits of application security, then provides a roadmap of actionable recommendations for companies seeking to either optimize an existing or begin developing application security that results in a lowered vulnerability footprint, an increased compliance success-rate, and streamlined operational, financial, and strategic processes.

A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: Armorize Technologies and AsTech Consulting. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=4192.

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